My Review of "The Last Duel"

The Last Duel come and went with not a lot of fanfare in 2021. It's shocking because of the big names that were attached to this project. I would have thought a lot of people would be interested in this movie. Then again it is a period piece and those don't generally do well nowadays.

The story starts off with a duel. Of course I wasn't too surprised since it's in the title of the movie. Though this is cut short right before their jousting sticks hit one another. This movie then goes back into time and tells the story of a knight named Sir Jean de Carrouges.

We soon learn that the two parties jousting one another were actually good friends a while back. Jean's story is interesting because you see how he feels slighted in many ways his jousting opponent, Jacques Le Gris, as well as Jacques lord, Pierre. Pierre in particular isn't too fond of Jean.

In fact, Pierre despises Jean and Jean can't do anything about it. Pierre is related to the King of France and is of higher social class than Jean. You can understand how Jean continues to brood more and more as these two continually defy and insult him.

Pretty soon we understand the action that breaks Jean. He's livid and this results in the duel you see in the beginning. Soon after we understand Jean's story we then get a peak into Jacques story. Jacques has a slightly different understanding of the situation.

It's fun to see how he retells the story because all of the actors are portrayed in a different way in the same exact scenes that we see earlier in Jeans story. We then get Jacques point of view of the situation and see what's going on in that brain of his.

What's makes this movie so multi-dimensional is that we then see Jean's wife, Maruerite's perspective of the whole situation. Her story is again different from Jean and Jacques perspectives. We also learn of how terrible medieval France really was to women of those days. It's a tale that doesn't get told that often. I think her portion of the movie really stole the whole movie for me.

I love how they give us these three perspectives and it makes us think about how there are multiple perspectives to any story. This story is actually based on true events so it gives it a little more weight to the situation. The movie is also filmed in a very realistic fashion. I could see how all of these things could have actually happened in real life.

Then at the very end we finally get to the duel we've all been waiting for. The fact that we got all three perspectives makes us feel that much more invested in each of the characters. It's such a great payoff to see this fight later because I was so into the story. I think they may have taken a page from UFC and boxing fight promotions to make this movie. That's generally how they drum up interest into their fights. This movie does the same thing but in a much more dramatic fashion.

Overall, I loved this movie. I can't believe not many people have seen this movie. It's such a great tale and done in such a beautiful way. We're all able to grasp our own opinion of the matter after hearing from all three sides. With each side you start thinking differently of each of the characters as well. I have to give this movie an 8 out of 10. It is a very fun film but with a lot of narrative that not everyone will get into. I loved it though.